Secrets and Lies
by Dorienda
Summary: After meeting Warren, Andrew is forced to face the truth he's been desperate to keep hidden. Chapters 1-5.
1. First Sight

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They belong to our Lord and Master, Joss Whedon.

Time: At the start of S6, after Buffy's resurrection.

Summary: After he meets Warren, Andrew struggles to accept the truth about himself he's been desperate to cover up. Andrew's fascination with Warren has always interested me, so I decided to write a story about it.

Andrew fell over the first time he saw Warren. 

Warren was speaking to Andrew's brother, Tucker. Andrew heard them mumbling in the basement and crept onto the stairs to have a look. The sight of Warren's aquiline profile – like Caesar, Andrew thought – made him stumble to the foot of the steps.

"Andrew!" Tucker yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I um…n-nothing. I just…wanted to get my pants out of the, um…dryer."

"The washer and dryer are on the second floor, doofus. They haven't been in the basement for five years."

"S-sorry." Andrew stood silent on the stairs, his gaze still fixed on Warren.

"Well? Are you going to get them or what?"

"Oh. Yeah…I'll get them." Andrew hesitated a moment before finally ascending the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Tucker gesturing toward him, silently relating to Warren the legendary proportions of dorkiness his brother possessed.

"Dammit!" Andrew scolded to himself as he slammed his bedroom door. He flopped onto the bed, stomach first, and cradled his head in his hands. He wept for several minutes before composing himself.

Andrew's room was a geek's haven: The wall was invisible beneath overlapping posters of Captain Picard, Seven of Nine, Chewbacca, Galadriel, and other movie characters. His bookcases were filled with offerings from Douglass Adams, H.P. Lovecraft, and the occasional Shatner title. He had a brand new computer, a television and a DVD player, for which he had hundreds of discs – the complete Monty Python and Star Trek film canons, movies based on Marvel comics, _Gozdilla _starring Matthew Broderick. 

But beneath the Deanna Troi posters and stacks of graphic novels, behind the Mark Hamill movies and comic books sheathed in moisture-resistant plastic, Andrew's true identity lay hidden.


	2. What Lies Beneath

Andrew got up from the bed, his white bedspread now stained with a small puddle of tears, and went to his underwear drawer. He opened it, reached beneath the stack of boxers, and pulled out a paperback book. 

He had been too embarrassed to buy the book or borrow it from the library, so he went to the local Barnes & Noble, tucked it under his shirt, bought several "normal" books and comics, and walked out. It amazed and thrilled him at how easy the shoplifting had been – he didn't even trip the alarm.

He opened the book and flipped to a page he remembered reading several weeks ago, when he stayed up until two in the morning reading the entire thing under the covers with a flashlight.

The page read, "Coping With Your First Gay Crush."

He thought of Warren, with his spiked hair and large proboscis (even a virgin like Andrew knew what _that_ meant) and his stomach became a pit of hot and cold tension, rapidly creeping down farther into his pants.

Andrew looked around the room, seeing clearly all that his prominent geek toys so carefully masked: Novels by Oscar Wilde. The worn copy of _Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert_. CDs by popular boy bands. A poster of Captain Sisko to which he had several masturbatory fantasies.

"God!" he screamed, throwing the book back under his boxers and slamming the drawer shut. "Why am I like this?!"

He hurled himself back onto the bed, burying his head beneath his hands.


	3. Brotherly Advice

Andrew remembered with crystal clarity when his secret was nearly revealed six months ago.

He was listening to an N*Sync CD on his headphones, singing along to "Bye Bye Bye" and dancing around his room so vigorously that he shook the ceiling in the living room below.

It was then Tucker barged into his room.

"Andrew! Andrew!" Andrew was oblivious to everything but Justin Timberlake's voice.

Tucker stormed over to Andrew, snapping his left headphone squarely against his ear.

"Ow!" Andrew screamed. After realizing that Tucker had seen him shimmying around, he quickly threw the Discman and headphones onto the bed.

"The hell you listening to?" Tucker asked. He pulled out the CD, too quick for Andrew to stop him. "N*Sync? _Again?_ Don't you know that's girls' shit?"

"Well, uh…" Andrew stammered. "I, um…have this friend who lent it to me. He, um…wanted me to listen to it."

"Jesus, Andrew," Tucker said as he rolled his eyes. "You know, you can borrow my Limp Bizkit or Metallica CDs when I'm not using them. But for God's sake, you're sixteen years old now – stop listening to boy bands. And take down their stupid posters!"

"OK," Andrew said, hyperventilating. "Y-you're right. I'll, uh…borrow that Limp Bisquick CD from you tonight." 

"_Bizkit_," Tucker sighed as he turned to leave. He stopped and turned to Andrew. "Look, even if you do listen to this N*Sync shit, at least have the decency not to dance around to it. Someone might think you're a fag." He shook his head and slammed the door behind him.

Andrew fell into his computer chair, relieved – Tucker just thought he was being immature. Still, he knew he had to bury himself deeply in the closet. If Tucker did found out, it would be all over the neighborhood and he would be tormented even worse than he already was. 

So Andrew spent the night redecorating his room, transforming the look from "questioning teen male" to "geek chic."


	4. Planting the Seed

Andrew was still on the bed, his head buried in his arms, when he heard a soft knock on his door. 

"Go away!" he shouted into his shirt sleeves.

"Andrew?" The voice was deep and slightly familiar.

"What? I said go away!"

"Andrew? This is Warren…Tucker's friend from the basement."

Andrew quickly lifted his head, causing the room to spin about as his tear-swollen eyes struggled to get used to the light.

"What, um…what do you want?" He checked his dresser mirror to see his eyes weren't as red and puffy as he had feared.

"I wanted to apologize for your brother."

Andrew wiped the snot from his nose onto the underside of his right shirt sleeve, then wiped the excess onto the back of his right pant leg before opening the door.

There he was. With his broad shoulders, arched eyebrows and that striking nose, Andrew thought Warren was not particularly handsome, but instead possessed an untouchable quality that rapt his attention.

"I'm sorry about Tucker," Warren said. "He treated you pretty harsh. I think he was trying to show off for me."

"Oh, that's OK," Andrew said, reaching his left arm behind his head. "He and I don't really get along, anyway."

"Well, that's no reason for him to treat his only brother like a jerk."

Andrew's eyebrows shrunk together. No one had ever made him feel like he _shouldn't_ be treated like a jerk. In fact, he was suspicious that someone like Warren was making him feel like a human being.

"Why are you being so nice to me? Did Tucker send you up here?"

Warren took a step back and held up his hands. "Whoa! Tucker doesn't even know I'm up here…he thinks I've gone home. Really, I just came up here to apologize. If you want me to leave…"

"No!" Andrew said a little too quickly. "No, that's fine. I'm sorry I overreacted."

"It's OK. I understand…" Warren's voice trailed off as he examined the room's decorations. "People have treated me the same way."

"What, treated you bad?"

"Treated bad, teased, tormented…whatever you want to call it." Warren sat at the head of the bed and examined the book shelves. "I'm a geek too, Andrew. I'm not into pop culture as much as you apparently are, but let's just say I'd rather read a Linux manual than the sports page."

Andrew sat next to Warren, gazing at his strong silhouette. "You seem pretty cool to me."

"I think I'm cool, too," Warren said, turning to face Andrew. "It's the rest of the world that thinks otherwise."

"Bastards."

"You know it. Tucker knew it too."

Andrew shook his head. "What do you mean?"

"That's the reason I came over here today. Tucker showed me his plans for the hell hounds."

"The hell hounds? But Buffy destroyed them."

"I know. Destroyed by the Slayer. That blond bitch…typical California bubblehead."

"Yeah, typical," Andrew repeated. "Well, except for her super strength. That's not really typical."

"She hated that someone else other than her little clique could have so much power. So she destroyed it. She did it to Jonathan, too."

"Jonathan Levinson? What did he do?"

"He cast a spell that made him the best at everything. Academics, sports, business – you name it, he was its golden child. Until Buffy came along and figured everything out. She made Jonathan end the spell, then chewed him out for casting it! Said it was wrong to manipulate everyone's thoughts. As if bettering oneself had become a crime!"

"Yeah, I never knew improving yourself was wrong," Andrew repeated.

Warren smiled and put his hand on Andrew's shoulder. "I'm glad you think like me. I was hoping you would."

The touch singed into Andrew's blood, coursing clear down to his toes. He shut his eyes and let his mind sway in the moment.

"Andrew, how would you like to join me in taking on the Slayer?"

"Sure…" Andrew said dreamily. He then opened his eyes wide. "Wait…what?"

"Take on the Slayer. Become her nemeses."

"Her nemeses? But I thought demons were her nemeses."

"Well, they are," Warren sighed. "I mean _human_ nemeses."

Andrew still looked perplexed.

"Let me put it in terms you'd understand. Superman has Lex Luthor. Batman has the Joker…"  
"Professor X has Magneto!" Andrew chimed.

"You got it, Andrew. Now, whom does Buffy have right now?"

Andrew thought a moment. "Well, no one."

"Exactly. The balance of power is tilted too far onto her side." Warren drew his face close to Andrew's. "Now, don't you think it's time to tip the scales a little in our favor?"

Andrew stared at Warren, absorbing what he just heard. He thought about Tucker's plans for the hell hounds – how he wanted to get back at all the people who made fun of him. Andrew was right there with him, having known the sting of other people's words and actions even more than Tucker. He remembered feeling sad and disappointed each time he looked at the hell hounds' empty cages, which Tucker kept for weeks after the prom.

Tucker had told him Buffy won the "Class Protector" award that night, and how she later recruited almost everyone in the graduating class to fight the Mayor. Andrew thought no one could do that if they weren't popular.

And it was the popular people who made people like Andrew and Warren suffer the most.

"So," Andrew finally said. "What do you want me to do?"


	5. Recruited

"Tucker tells me you're a whiz at languages," Warren said. "That you even memorized the Klingon dictionary in two weeks."

"Oh yeah!" Andrew squealed. "Klingon is pretty easy once you get past the foreign symbols. Did you know there's five-hundred and sixty-seven words for _battle_?"

"No," Warren flatly replied. "I did not know that."

"Yeah. And there are two-hundred and seven words for _blood_ and…and nearly a thousand words for _kill_…"

"So what other languages besides made up ones do you know?"

"Oh, right. Well, I know Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Sumerian. I can read Egyptian hieroglyphs…"

Warren's face brightened. "They're all ancient languages. Biblical and mythic languages."

"Yeah," Andrew said. "I don't really like modern languages too much since they change all the time. But I do know some French and Italian and Spanish…they're pretty simple since they all come from Latin."

"How long did it take you to learn the other languages…Latin and Sumerian and those?"

Andrew's eyes stretched to the ceiling as he tried to remember. "Let's see…um, Latin was easy since I didn't have to learn new characters, so that only took me about a week. Sumerian and Greek and Hebrew took a bit longer – did you know Hebrew is read right to left? Oh, and I picked up on hieroglyphs after watching _The Mummy_ – you know, the one with Brendan Fraser?"

"Yeah, I've seen that movie."

"Isn't Brendan Fraser wonderful in it?" Andrew asked in a hushed, serious tone. "All that running and waving a gun around…"

"So you learned hieroglyphs just by watching that movie?" Warren pressed.

"Well, I had to watch it about five times before I could put the symbols together. And I got a book on it from the library."

Warren nodded his head and grinned before getting up from the bed. "Andrew, in joining with me in taking on the Slayer, you'll have the chance to use that knowledge to summon power you've only dreamed of!"

"What…what kind of power?"

"Jonathan has already joined up," Warren said. "He's quite the little warlock, you know? But all those spells in all those musty books are in ancient languages. It would be difficult for him to learn those languages _and_ concentrate on perfecting his magick."

Andrew rose slowly from the bed as he pieced together what Warren was asking of him. "I could translate those spells for him!"

"All right, Andrew!" Warren said slowly. "Just think…all that power waiting to be harnessed. And we three will be the ones to do it – your language skills, Jonathan's magick and my leadership abilities."

"The three of us…" Andrew repeated. "The Trio."

"Hey, I like that. That's what we'll call ourselves…The Trio." Andrew grinned uncontrollably.

"So, Andrew…are you in?"

Andrew didn't hesitate. "I'm in."


End file.
